Agency left in dark during scare

News-Times, The (Danbury, CT)

Published
1:00 am EST, Tuesday, December 6, 2005

NEW HAVEN (AP) - Connecticut homeland security officials went more than two hours Friday without knowing that a series of bomb threats had forced the evacuation and shutdown of the state's 45 courthouses, authorities acknowledged Monday.

Investigators believe the bomb threat was a hoax designed to disrupt court business.

State police
arrested a 28-year-old Willimantic man on terrorism, threatening and related charges on Monday, saying he was the one who called in the threats Friday.

Javier Rodriguez was being held on $250,000 bail pending an arraignment today in Danielson Superior Court. State police said they apprehended Rodriguez at his home without incident after obtaining an arrest warrant Monday, and said no other suspects were being sought. A motive was not released.

"Anyone who's considering copying this behavior should see how quickly resources came together and how quickly state police solved this case," Chief State's Attorney
Christopher Morano
said.

After police monitored courthouses over the weekend and reported no problems, courts opened as usual Monday. Courts in New Britain and Bristol were briefly evacuated after police received another threat Monday morning.

Police were investigating Monday's threats. Morano said there was no immediate reason to believe Rodriguez was involved in Monday's threats.

Neither police nor Gov.
M. Jodi Rell
's office - which received one of Friday's bomb threats at 10 a.m. - had informed the security agency by noon, leaving top officials to learn about the first-of-its-kind evacuation from reporters.

Public Safety Commissioner
Leonard Boyle
said Friday's threat fell between the cracks because it was more than a routine scare but did not rise to level of a statewide emergency.

"We're going to come up with a system, either by blast fax or e-mail, that will notify all state agencies when something like this arises," Boyle said. "When we have information that's important to get out statewide, but that isn't an emergency, we need a better way."

Had a bomb exploded, Thomas would have been in charge of coordinating the response to an attack he had no information about. He and Boyle spoke Monday and agreed that the system must be improved.

The bomb threat was one of the first tests of Rell's homeland security communications. The Department of Emergency Management and Homeland Security was formed in part to improve communication between agencies.

Rell's spokesman,
Judd Everhart
, said Thomas should have been notified but he had no immediate response to why nobody in Rell's office made the call.

"The governor has directed Commissioner Boyle to tighten the communications plan among state agencies so there is better and faster communication in an emergency," Everhart said.

New Haven Mayor
John DeStefano
, who is vying for his party's nomination in next year's gubernatorial race, immediately seized on the misstep. He said Rell is too quick to blame her commissioners for her administration's problems.

"You can't separate the governor's office from the homeland security team from the first responders. They have to be one and the same," DeStefano said. "In two hours, the
World Trade Centers
were hit and came down. That's what can happen in 120 minutes. In New York it was 3,000 people's lifetimes."

Boyle said homeland security officials were not immediately informed because the threat was not specific. Investigators couldn't determine its credibility, he said, and there was no indication of terrorism.

But if it was important enough to evacuate the judicial system, Thomas should have been called, Boyle said. He said local police have also complained that they were not notified. Local police will be included in any new statewide communication system, Boyle said.

While Thomas said he should have known about the threat earlier, he said State Police did the right thing by clearing the courthouses immediately.

"If I'm not notified until after everyone is safe and secure, that's OK," Thomas said.

Morano, whose prosecutors were working throughout the judicial system, echoed that Monday.

"I believe the State Police did an admirable job making contact with judicial officials, with my office and the people on the front lines being exposed," Morano said. "I think they also did a great job investigating immediately. Every time you have an incident you can learn from it, but I'd leave it to them."